33 Months and Counting

When we started the process to adopt from China I never thought we would be waiting this long. However, now 33 months have passed and right now I can't even guess when we will finally hold Livi in our arms.

Referrals are Here!

Congratulations to all of the families who are seeing their child's face for the first time!!! China has referred through February 28, 2006!

According to China Adoption Forecast: China has 38 days of dossiers to be processed before they get to your dossier. China currently processes about 6.1 days of dossiers each month.
Our best guess: 2009-07-16

This actually moved up our approximate date from the last time referrals arrived!!!!!!!!!!!

December 2008 Referrals

It is that time again and referrals began arriving yesterday for families logged in through February 23, 2006. Congratulations to all of the families who are seeing their child's face for the first time.

The China Adoption Forecast site gives this information.

China has 43 days of dossiers to be processed before they get to your dossier. China currently processes about 5.3 days of dossiers each month.
Our best guess: 2009-07-24

Of course, this estimate changes every month depending on the number of days of referrals.

Waiting is so Hard

Today marks the 32nd month that our dossier has been logged in. This year we will be struggling with our 4th Christmas without our daughter. Sometimes I feel like a very cruel trick has been played on me and there will not be our daughter here when all this is over. Then other times I just know that Olivia will come home to us. Today, I just feel lost and sad that our daughter is not in our arms.

Waiting, Waiting and More Waiting

Referrals began arriving yesterday and I still have no idea what the cut-off date is. However, it looks like China may have only referred 2 days this month which would still leave us with 49 LID's in front of us. At this rate, God and the CCAA are the only ones who know when we will finally get to meet our daughter.

Yesterday J and I celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary and tomorrow is our 31st month waiting for Olivia to come. It is getting more and more difficult to be positive about this wait and I sometimes wonder if Olivia will ever come home to us.

30 Months and Counting

I never thought we would have been waiting for Olivia this long, but 30 months have passed since our dossier was logged in with China.

Any guesses how much longer we will wait?

Referrals are Here!

Referrals have arrived for LID's from February 10-15, 2006. Now there are only 50 LID's left before it is finally our turn. It has been a long 3 years since we began the process to bring Olivia home.

Congratulations to all of the families who are finally seeing their children for the first time.

Last Vacation without Olivia???

After a rough start and a change of plans, last Sunday we left for a cruise to the Caribbean. Our initial plans were to leave last Friday to visit New Orleans and then head to Key West. Well, the hurricanes took care of those plans so on Thursday morning we booked a cruise. We had a great time and had wonderful weather, but I am looking forward to vacationing with Olivia.

Our ship, the Adventure of the Seas.

When we arrived in Aruba some of the streets were closed and there were camera crews everywhere. We found out that Parliament was returning that day. These are the soldiers waiting for the members of Parliament.

Curacao is a beautiful island and the houses are beautiful with so many different colors.

J and I climbing the Rock Wall on the ship. We both made it to the top and rang the bell.

Saint Marteen is divided in half. One side is owned by the French and the other by the Dutch. The island, especially the beaches, were beautiful.

This is St. Thomas from the ship. We spent a lot of time walking around the shops and at the Coki Beach.

Back to our final port, San Juan, Puerto Rico.

29 Months and Still Waiting

Tomorrow marks 29 months of waiting for our daughter to finally come home. I am really hoping that we will finally meet Olivia next year.

Referrals Are Arriving and Only 56 LID's Left

Congratulations to all of the families whose LID's were through February 9, 2006. I know that they are excited about seeing their child's face for the first time.

Now there are only 56 LID's until it is our turn. That doesn't sound like much, but it could take another year to get to us.

Referrals Are Arriving

Referrals are arriving for LID's through January 31, 2006! This means that there are only 65 LID's left before it is our turn!

Congratulations to all of the families who are receiving their referrals!

28 Months!

Our dossier has now been in China for 28 months! How is that even possible? On the referral side of things, rumor has it that the CCAA is only referring 2 days of LID's this month.

Tomorrow evening our oldest niece, Jennifer is getting married. Wow, it is hard to believe that she is old enough.

RQ Weekend

I am so thankful for the support I have received from both family and friends during this long process. I am also so thankful for all of the new friends I have met on RQ (Rumor Queen - China Adopt Talk). This past weekend my mom and I headed to Maine to meet a bunch of friends from RQ. It was so wonderful to finally meet so many people who have given me so much support, encouragement and laughter over these two years. It was also great to meet all of the children. They were a great group of girls and I am honored that I got to meet and play with them. I am including a picture of one little girl who really made me smile... a lot.

Thank you Linda for getting us all together!

July Update

So far this month has been crazy. On Friday night, July 4, our lab ran away because she was scared of the fireworks. We spent the whole weekend putting up posters and looking for her. Thankfully, mainly due to the kindness of one stranger named Kurt, we were reunited with her this afternoon.

Today is our 27th month LID anniversary. I never thought that we would still be waiting to see our daughter, but here we are.

Also today referrals began arriving for people logged in through January 25, 2006. There are now only 72 LID's in front of us. It does not seem like many days, but they could take another year or more to get to us.

Congratulations to all of the families who are finally seeing a picture of their child for the first time. What a wonderful day for them.

Referrals are Arriving!

Referrals began arriving today for families with LID's in January 2006. Although I am not sure of the cut-off date, I know it is at least January 20, but could possibly be January 22. If it is the 20th, that means we have 77 LID's in front of us. Congratulations to all of the families who are seeing their children's faces for the first time today.

26 Months Down and ??? To Go

We now have been waiting 26 months to finally meet our Olivia. I can't believe our wait of 6 to 9 months has stretched out this long.

Another Good-Bye

Early this morning my Grandmother passed away. She was my last remaining Grandparent and Livi's last remaining Great-Grandparent. She was so excited for Livi to come home to us and I know she will be watching over all of us from heaven. We will miss her but we know she is in a much better place.

Mother's Day

Once again Mother's Day has come. In my heart I feel like a mother, but my arms are empty. I worry about Olivia, wonder if she has been born yet, worry if she is hungry, cold or needing to be held in loving arms. I worry that we will never see our daughter's face and that I will continue to feel empty without her in my life. When she finally does come home I hope she knows how much she was wanted and loved well before she came home to her forever family.

To all the mom's out there, I hope you had a wonderful Mother's Day. I have been blessed with a wonderful mother who is always there for me and has loved me unconditionally. I hope I will be half as good of mother to Olivia as my mom has been to me. Happy Mother's Day Mom, I love you.

For all the waiting to be mom's out there...our time will come.

25 Months

Wow, today it has been 25 months since our dossier was logged in. I can't believe how long we have already waited to see Olivia's face and to hold her in our arms. When we started this process I thought that 9 months would seem like forever to wait and now I know that it was just a drop in the bucket.

Happy Birthday to Katie and Reese who turned 4 today. They grow up so fast.

Referrals are Arriving

Referrals for families logged in after January 9, 2006 began arriving today. Although it is not official, it looks as though the cut-off is January 12, 2006. Congratulations to all of the families who have seen their child's face for the first time.

84 days left until they get to us!